starbowfandomcom-20200213-history
History
A short history of Starbow From the narrative of Kabel, the founder of Starbow. With some additions by Xiphias, the current lead developer. ''2011 '''October' - I buy SC2...And I become disappointed. December - People on forums complain on SC2. But no one does anything about it. I decide to learn the editor and release my own version of SC2. ''2012 '''January 21' - The first version of Starbow is released. It receives quite positive attention and I get some playtesters. February - March - Danko, Roblin and Laertes aka UloseTheGame becomes involved in the process of design, feedback and playtesting. I start to go bananas and invent own units, macro mechanics and a lot of other stuff just because I find it amusing. The game of course becomes horrible. April - The player pool is almost vanished. No one cares anymore. Not even me. I write a goodbye-post where I declare Starbow dead and burried. Dakota (currently known as Ferret) and Laertes stops me via PMs. Instead they start to release material on Youtube, and tries to spread Starbow via other ways. Due to their support I continue. Summer - I decide to let Starbow be a "sequel" to BW. I use more influences from the dynamics and the gameplay of BW, and I try to improve upon it. A first true beta version is released where all races are decently complete. A player pool starts to be established again. August/September - December starts to upload VODS where he casts Starbow games. I get a nerdgasm. October- VrumFondel and Sarajeneda publishes Starbow on two Russian forums. The chat channel on EU explodes! 20+ players every day for ca two weeks. The chat channel is filled with Russian language. I understand nothing but still I love it... In the meantime, the NA scene grows too. Players like CaptainAmerica, Chronopolis, Freeze, Purakushi etc spread fear across the Starbow community. People discuss if EU or NA have the best players. If only global play was a reality... November - I try different concepts, rework, rebalance and mixtures a lot with the game. (Anyone remember the beefy 50 HP Zerglings? T_T) The player pool starts to fade away again. I almost fade away too. December - Xiphias starts to upload casted games, and becomes one of the most devoted players. xiA contacts me and offers me his skills in the editor. He does an incredible amount of technical work that I was unable to fix. The Reaver FINALLY works as intended! ''2013 '''January 21' - I declare Starbow completed. One year after it was first released. A great tournament is organized by Xiphias. But still there are some flaws in the design and balance... March - HoTS is released. It creates huge errors in the Starbow file. Me and xiA rebuild everything from scratch. It is a shitload of work. I also rush some badly thought design changes. I try to fix it with even more rushed patches. A black hole is born... April - Life becomes too stressful for me. I take a break from Starbow. Xiphias and December takes over the patching, and we all applaud! The next Starbow tournament is organized and it gives me nerdchills. Summer - I return to Starbow and continues the work. The game feels like it has no clear direction. How will it ever be finished? September - I decide to opt even more for the BW balance. Its the easiest way to determine if the balance is good or not. Almost all units, structures and spells in the game get the proper value that is used in BW. The economy gets reworked so its almost identical to BW. October - The game feels much better! Finally it seems like Starbow is truly on the right track. The challenge is to make the new content fit in the game - Macro mechanics, spells and units who are not from BW. Otherwise we basically just have an exact copy of BW... December - I release one last big patch which includes a reworked version of Roach, Stalker and Marauder, as an attempt to truly make them fit. On top of that, the patch also featured a reworked Swarm Host, Colossus and Thor, as a way to try them in the game. Only those versions of Roach, Stalker and Marauder ended up in the game we see today... ''2014 '''January' - My intended release date was once again January 21, exactly two years after I release the first version of Starbow on TeamLiquid. However, TotalBiscuit published a video on Youtube on January 10, where he casted two high level Korean players playing vs each other. And over a night, Starbow suddenly got a large player base, despite not being finished... : ) (Xiphias takes over here) Februrary/March - Kabel feels that the work of designing Starbow is taking too much of his time and he also feels that the rudementarty work that is left can be completed without him. Xiphias suggests that a development team should be formed to continue the work. Kabel agrees and a team consiting of: Decemberscalm, SolidSMD, Franscar, Kalevi and Xiphias is formed. 'March/April - '''The "eros" ladder client is completed and Starbow has its first external ladder service. The "Starbow Beta invitational" tournament is orgnized by Xiphias with 8 invited players. Prize pool ends up at $1200 with help from the community in addition to sponors Razer and Twitch. Xiphias and decemberscalm cast the event with guest casts by SuperNovaManiac and none other than TotalBiscuit himself. The "B" stream is hosted by Rifkin over on BasetradeTV. Starbowmod.com is also created as a community website for anything Starbow related. '''Summer 2014 '- The ladder and hype dies down and the "Starbow ladder cup" is formed to help bring some life back to the ladder. Many patches are also added on a regular basis. Tehredbandit becomes very active with Starbow balance and design and eventually replace Franscar on the developemnt team. SolidSMD becaue gradually more and more inactive due to studies. 'Fall 2014 -' "SoaH" starts to help with graphics and programming and proves to be very passionate about helping the Starbow community. (to be contiuned...)